The Ryanair Factor

Over the weekend many of you will have seen the story that Ryanair are considering that customers will have to pay for a pee. The comments from Michael O’Leary have generated huge amounts of coverage and most of it from a very objective standpoint would feel it is negative. Indeed for those caught out at Kings X – 30 pence is a great investment or the McDonalds across the street is free!

However, The PRologoist feels that actually it is a smart move by the Chief Executive because the subliminal message this story carries - which will last longer than the initial outrage in the press - is one that supports the core statement for Ryanair – that they provide cheap flights, and in the current economic climate then even more of us fall into the category of wanting cheap flights!

Ryanair’s PR strategy has played up to these strengths and they have taken on the establishment to great effect, but they do have to be careful in their targets as another story in the same week has probably not made them any friends in the blogging community.

The blogger, Jason Roe, claimed to find a bug in the Ryanair website that meant flights were displayed at £0.00 cost. Subsequently in the comments section a couple of Ryanair staff took exception to this claim in terms that may even make Michael O’Leary blush.

The final comment from Ryanair came from Stephen McNamara, their Head of Communications, with:

"Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion."It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again."Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel".

One of the clearest statements on a position The PRologist has ever seen. It is a shame that he does not go into politics, it would certainly make it more interesting! However his attitude is disappointing – does he not realise that companies that engage with their most vociferous bloggers can actually learn from them and improve customer service thus increasing profits negating the need even for PEE R men.